USC scored a perfect 6-0 to become the 2011 U.S. Amateur
Team West Champions! The tournament was held in Woodland Hills, California over President's Day weekend. Led by head coach of the USC chess team and local favorite
IM Jack Peters, the rest of the lineup was very balanced and consisted of
Danyul Lawrence, Blake Phillips, Nathan Heussenstamm, and alternate Sriram
Balasubramanian. The main reason for their success would have to be their
consistency, as out of the 24 games they played, they only lost ONE, made a few
draws, and scored a trojan-load of wins!

USC took down the pre-tournament ratings favorite, Hot Tub
Timoschenko (David Adelberg, Nick Thompson, John Gurczak, Jim Geary), in the
final round, 3-1, to achieve the well deserved victory. Hot Tub Timoschenko, a
team that had traveled from Arizona, also started the tournament 5-0, and after
losing to USC finished the tournament in clear second place.
Board 2 of USC, Danyul Lawrence, was the MVP of the team,
going 5.5/6, earning top honors on Board 2. Here is Lawrence's convincing last
round win over Hot Tub Timoschenko's Nick Thompson:

Team captain IM Jack Peters went 5/6 on Board 1, beating
several strong players. Here are 2 nice wins of his in rounds 3 and 4.

A nice checkmate was pointed out by Peters after 18. Ba5
Nf3+ 19. Kf1 Bh3#

Blake Phillips, who played on Board 3 for USC, was known as
"the clincher", because he was able to draw all four of his games, which, when
teamed with a few wins would clinch the match in USC's favor. Nathan Heussenstamm
scored 3 out of 4 by playing boards 3 and 4, and the alternate, Sriram
Balasubramanian, went a very "solid" 4/4 in the 4 matches he played on the
fourth board.

Finishing in third place was Chess Palace Team (IM Zhanibek
Amanov, Edison Ruge, Jeff Phillips, Aldrich Ong, Albert Lu), who had the best
tie-breaks out of four teams with 4.5/6.

Best Team Name
To be bitterly honest, this competition for $10 gift
certificates was not treated with the same amount of importance as the actual
tournament, despite the opinion that it has high importance of everyone
everywhere ever. That said, the winners most definitely deserve mention here:

1st Place - 16 Years and We Still Haven't Won
U1600
2nd - Place - Let's Mate Those Little Fockers
(apparently this one was a lot more vulgar before the team members were
notified that a certain Ben Stiller movie made their name pun-friendly, and
they were able to change it in time for the vote)

Best Team Names Not Submitted:

Let's Mate Those Black Swan
Let's Mate Those True Grit
Let's Mate Those The Adjustment Bureau
Let's Mate Those Ratatouille (really late for this one, but
alright)

My Team

Metropolitan Chess (Ankit Gupta, Kostya Kavutskiy, Allan
Karman, Udit Iyengar), finished well below our expectations, mainly because we
expected to win the whole darn thing! That said, we scored a respectable
4/6and were able to start and end the
tournament with a 4-0 sweep!

NM Ankit Gupta, who scored a fantastic 5/6 on board 1,
played this incredible game in Round 3 against NM Ronald Bruno:

When there were three black knights on the board, and it wasn't
obvious which one was recently promoted to, it was absolutely hysterical to
watch extremely puzzled spectators (of all strengths) to count, re-count and
re-count the number of black knights.

So overall the tournament was a fun experience for just
about everyone involved. It was very well organized by Randy Hough and very
well directed by TD John McCumiskey:
There were a total of 54 teams, along with about 40
scholastic teams, meaning there were nearly 400 players playing team chess at
the Waner Center Marriot! Apart from a false fire alarm in Round 1, there were
absolutely no issues with the venue and in general things ran quite smoothly!